


too far out of my skin

by erintoknow



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Comatose Victim, Drug Addiction, Gen, Mind Control, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 08:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20721287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erintoknow/pseuds/erintoknow
Summary: You may have escaped and made it back to Los Diablos after five years of hell, but now you're on your own and can't trust anyone.That's fine, you'llmakesomeone you can trust





	too far out of my skin

**Author's Note:**

> title from [[Next of Kin by Lucy Dacus]](https://lucydacus.bandcamp.com/track/next-of-kin)

The bed deforms around Jane as she sits down and looks at your comatose body. Sickly pale skin, so pale it comes around to being able to make out the freckles on your face again. Red hair in unkept frizzy mess only just starting to reach your ears. It’s unsettling how alike Jane is to you.

Finding Jane in that hospital ward had felt like an unbelievable stroke of good luck. After a week of scouting out your options you had been ready to grab just about any comatose body you could find. And here was Jane, her body so like your own but better. Younger, prettier, cisgender, and yes, bigger boobs, you admit it.

Wearing her body is a high better than any drug you’ve tried.

A month back in Los Diablos and you’d spent most of it skulking around hospitals looking for an empty body just like Jane’s. Comatose and without any consciousness of her own, no identification, no family. It was a for-profit hospital so chances are they were only holding on to her to sell for parts. Another Jane Doe chewed up and about to be digested by the shithole that was Los Diablos.

Stepping into her empty brain had been painful, and you hadn’t been entirely sure it would work at first. But your first gasp in her body, feeling every muscle spasm and on fire was everything you could have hoped for.

It had taken some work to get her discharged. Some liberal and forceful mental suggestions across an uncomfortable number of people but you’d managed to get her set up in an apartment you rented below your own. And then it had been more months of painful physical therapy out of library books and internet guides to get the Jane Doe back into working order.

Jane gets up from the bed, walks over to the wardrobe, third drawer, pull all the way back, behind the jeans. Remove the false back, pull out the box, put it on top. Open it up to find the bottle and needles.

Really, Jane should be grateful you found her. Actually, you think for Jane so; Thank your CB-0742, for saving ‘my’ life. Why, you’re welcome Jane Doe, happy to help out.

You can’t give her her mind back, but you can loan her yours. Keep her taken care of. Given her something resembling a life. Soon you’ll have to start poking around, make connections with whatever counted as the criminal scene these days, and Jane could be your face for that. Someone no one will recognize.

But first–

Your first time out, you had someone to help you ween off whatever drug cocktail they had kept you under. This time around you’re on your own, and you know better to risk that kind of vulnerability again. That had been a stupid, desperate move. Back then you didn’t even know what you are on.

Okay, well, you still aren’t certain but you’ve gotten a better idea. Enough you’ve been able to stave off withdrawal. Now that Jane is up and running again, you can at least stay active while your own body goes through the worst of it and you tamper down the dose.

Needle in bottle, pull it up to the line, less than last time.

Hesitate a moment, look back at your prone body, sprawled out on the bed.

It’s tempting.

What if you just… accidentally overdosed yourself? Let your body die and Jane remain?When Jane goes to sleep, you always wake up back in your own body, so what happens if you have no body to wake back up in? Would you stay as Jane? Free to live a new life, free of the Farm forever? Or would you just… not wake back up?

Would that really be so bad?

Jane bites her lip, you can feel her heart racing.

It’s tempting.

Just let it end already.

But if you give up now, the Farm, the Directive, will never get what’s coming to them. What they deserve. Payback for what they’ve done.

Jane taps the needle, squints at the line. She puts the bottle down and returns toward your side, gentle hands taking your arm and rolling up the sleeve past the elbow. Smooth out the skin with an alcohol swab.

Just a pinch chickadee.

Just a little sting.

You’ll barely feel it.


End file.
